03 Jul 2019
By Kevin Gahagan

How To Turn A “Dumb” Home Into A Smart Home

Real Estate

How To Turn A Dumb Home Into A Smart HomeHaving a “smart home” is a trend that is popular. What does it actually mean? Smart home technology improves energy-efficiency, increases security, and creates more convenience for the home’s occupants.

Innovative smart home technology improves with the deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G wireless broadband, and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) programming. Many things that an owner and/or occupant of a home needs or wants may be done for them by smart home technology.

Energy-Efficiency

Green energy systems include installing energy-efficient windows and perhaps solar panels along with battery storage. Moreover, by managing micro-zones within a home, money is saved by not wasting it on heating or cooling when not needed.

Management of temperature control is possible with smart home technology that allows the heating and air-conditioning system to direct hot or cold air to the rooms that need it, only when occupied. These systems turn off the zone when the room is not in use.

Advanced systems learn the occupant’s typical home-use patterns and anticipate them. For example, if a person comes home around the same time each day, the house prepares the rooms for that person in advance of their arrival.

Advanced systems link vehicles with the home. For example, the climate control system may receive the GS location of the vehicle over the IoT. Then, the AI software of the house can determine the distance the car is from the home and the direction it is traveling. The AI guesses if the person is driving home and adjusts the home accordingly.

Increased Security

This is one of the best reasons to install smart home technology. Increased security may help to reduce risks of burglary, home invasion, and damage caused by unavoidable disasters.

Home security may use biometrics, such as facial recognition, fingerprints, iris scans, and others, to authorize entry for specific people and prevent unauthorized intruders.

Video surveillance of the property, inside and out, keeps a record of what is happening. Innovation in AI detects camera images that are not appropriate, such as someone trying to break into the home and alert the homeowners as well as law enforcement.

Alarms trigger for many things such as a break-in of a door or window or someone coming to the front porch to steal a delivered package.

Sensors, which are much more sophisticated than a basic smoke alarm, may warn of smoke, fire, natural gas leaks, carbon monoxide levels in a garage, and even plumbing problems. With nanny cams, monitoring of babies and children is helpful for their safety.

Convenience

Smart Home technology can respond to the occupants’ use automatically or be manually chosen. For example, the coffee maker can turn on automatically in the morning to have the perfect brew ready for those who wake up. The dog door can be unlocked from bed for the dog to go outside in the morning.

A real-time inventory, using the barcodes of foodstuffs, automates the re-ordering of regularly used items when depleted.

The car can be started remotely and warmed up or cool before the driver and passengers enter it. During wintertime, entry steps can be heated to melt ice and snow just in time for people’s arrival. A hot tub can be turned on remotely so that it is fully heated up and ready for use when the owner’s come home.

Summary

There are so many innovations in smart technology already available and more on the way. Homeowners who invest in this smart technology may not only get to enjoy their home more, they may save on energy bills, and might also get a higher resale value for the “smart” home when selling it. It’s worth considering.

If you are in the market for a new property or interested in refinancing !

02 Jul 2019
By Kevin Gahagan

4 Tips To Ensure A Successful Closing

Real Estate

4 Tips To Ensure A Successful ClosingAs you come up to the date of your closing, there’s time to reflect on everything that led to this step. Your real estate agent, mortgage broker, title company and others all work hard to ensure a successful closing for you. They’re all in your corner, hoping for the same outcome as you. They’ve had to do a lot of work behind the scenes that you may not even be aware of. Their diligence and professionalism has already benefited you.

But did you know that it’s not all riding on your team of real estate professionals? There are things you can do to ensure a successful closing, too. 

1. Bring Your Checkbook

In other words, have extra funds available to cover unexpected costs. Anything could happen at the closing table. If there was an error in calculations, or the seller all of a sudden asks for some kind of additional compensation, you could all go home empty-handed. If you bring your checkbook, all those problems could go away and you end up with a successful closing. 

2. Don’t Forget Your ID

You probably don’t need to be reminded to bring your driver’s license with you when you drive. But did you know you’ll probably need to present your ID at the closing table? Funnily enough, people do forget, especially if you’re a woman and you’ve changed purses recently. Before you head to the closing table, double check that you have two forms of ID on you to be on the safe side.

3. Preview The Paperwork

Although everyone’s a professional, human error does occur. If possible, ask to preview the paperwork associated with the closing. Your real estate agent can help you with this step. Read through everything with a fine-toothed comb. Look for spelling errors, mistakes in addresses, and even transposed numbers. The earlier you can review paperwork, the longer the available time to get any errors corrected before the closing.

4. Bring Extra Documents With You

You don’t have to carry your filing cabinet to the closing. But it’s wise to bring relevant financial documents with you and leave them in your car. Lenders may ask for things last minute like old bank statements, a certain cancelled check or something else. 

With the help of your trusted real estate agent and home mortgage professional, your closing will likely go off without a hitch. But, just in case, keep these tips in mind.

 

 

 

01 Jul 2019
By Kevin Gahagan

What’s Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week – July 1st, 2019

Financial Reports

What’s Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week – July 1st, 2019Last week’s economic reports included readings on home prices, sales of pre-owned homes and pending home sales. Weekly readings on mortgage rates and first-time jobless claims were also released.

Case-Shiller Home Price Index: Home Price Growth Slips in April

Case-Shiller reported slower home price growth in April; home prices were 0.20 percent lower at 3.50 percent. Increasing inventories of homes for sale provided buyers with more choices and eased demand, which increased in recent years due to severe shortages of available homes.

Cities on the west coast previously dominated home price growth, but the top three cities with highest home prices reported in April were sunbelt cities located east of high-priced west coast cities. Las Vegas, Nevada reported the highest rate of home price growth with 7.20 percent year-over-year.

Phoenix, Arizona followed with 6.00 percent growth and Tampa, Florida home prices grew by 5.60 percent year-over-year in April. Home values in all three cities were hard hit during the recession and are recovering, but not at the double digit rates seen in prior years.

New Home Sales Fall in May

Sales of newly-built homes fell to a five-month low in May according to the Commerce Department. New homes sold at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 626,000 homes as compared to April’s rate of 679,000 new homes sold. May’s reading was 3.70 percent lower than April’s revised reading.

There was a 6.40 month supply of new homes available at May’s sales pace. Real estate pros consider a six-month supply of available homes as average. Sales of new homes were 4.00 percent higher than for the same period in 2018. The median price of new homes sold in May was $308,000 and was 2.70 percent lower than a year ago.

Pending home sales rose in May from April’s negative reading of -1.50 percent to a positive reading of 1.10 percent. This reading lines up with the increase in homes for sale.

Mortgage Rates, New Jobless Claims

Freddie Mac reported lower mortgage rates last week with the average rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage 11 basis points lower than for the prior week. Average rates for 15-year fixed rate mortgages and 5/1 adjustable rate mortgages fell nine basis points to 3.16 percent and 3.39 percent respectively.

Discount points averaged 0.50 percent for fixed rate mortgages and 0.40 percent for 5/1 adjustable rate mortgages. Mortgage applications rose 5 percent from the prior week due to the dip in home loan rates.

Initial jobless claims rose last week to 227,000 new claims filed as compared to 216,000 new claims expected and 217,000 first-time claims filed the prior week. Analysts sad that new jobless claims remain low and that last week’s rise in claims did not reflect weakening in labor markets.

The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index dropped to an index reading of 98.20 in June from May’s reading of 100. Consumer sentiment dropped due to concerns over recent tariffs and resulting increases in consumer prices

What‘s Ahead

This week’s scheduled economic news includes releases on construction spending and labor sector reports on public and private sector jobs and the national unemployment rate. Weekly reports on mortgage rates and new jobless claims will also be released.